The Rise of Sociology

 Sociological positivism views the individual as a

body that is acted upon, and whose behaviour is
determined by external forces
 Little or no role is given to the concept of free will
or individual choice
 The study of crime remains in the tradition of
positivistic method: something that can be
measured using the methodology of the natural
sciences
 In Durkheim’s view there is a consensus about
what is or isn’t criminal
 Suicide: Sociological or
Psychological
 The central tenets of positivism are scientific
method, determinism, consensus
 Durkheim’s study of suicide showed how the
seemingly individualistic decision to take one’s
own life was due to social and economic issues
 In this way Durkheim was able to show how social
factors explained individual and group action such
as crime, thus in the same way external forces
caused suicide, external forces caused crime
 Such an argument moved suicide away from
psychological reasons to sociological reasons
 Suicide Rates
 Durkheim’s research showed different patterns in suicide
rates in different countries, and these patterns were stable
as opposed to a random individual act
 They were higher in Protestant countries than Catholic
countries
 The rise and fall in suicide rates appeared to be related to
social factors, such as economic recession, surprisingly in
times of economic prosperity and fell in times of war and
political upheaval
 Finally there were variations in suicide rates between
different members of society, for example unmarried and
the childless had higher rates of suicide
 Explanations of Suicide Rates
 To prove his case, Durkheim collected
statistics from several European countries
 His explanation for the different
variations/patterns in suicide rates, he felt
was due to different levels of social
integration, for example Catholic families
had strong family networks that could
explain the lower suicide rates in southern
European countries
 Four Types of Social Structures
 Durkheim suggested four types of social structures that led
to different types of suicide
 Egotistic social structures, like modern Western countries,
focuses on individualism therefore integration is weak so
suicide rates are high
 Altruistic social structures, individuals are so well integrated
that they value the group more then their individuality
 In anomic (normlessness) social structures, the normal
social structure have broken down, because of rapid social
change and the resulting uncertainty leads to suicide
 Finally in very oppressive societies, such as concentration
camps, have fatalistic social structures in which people
lose the will to live.
 Suicide & Methodology
 From his analysis of suicide, Durkheim is arguing that
human beings are constrained by social forces, social facts
can be studied using the methodology of the natural
sciences
 Durkheim’s book Suicide: A study in Sociology identified
his rules of sociological method. As suicide rates are social
facts, social facts are real living forces that act on the
individual and these facts can be measured
 Statistical Evidence - it uncovered the patterns in suicide
rates between different European Countries
 Correlation and Analysis – he found correlations between
suicide rates and a range of social facts
 Causation – having discovered a correlation, Durkheim
wanted to find causal connections, which in this case was
determined by social integration.
Conclusions – Positivist perspective
 Realism or Positivism – though Durkheim’s approach is
positivist in nature – he’s looking for ‘real laws’ in the same
way the natural sciences research the ‘law’s’ of gravity.
 However as Durkheim is identifying ‘laws’ that aren’t
observable or measurable like family size, he adopts a
realist approach
 Realists argue that the causes of things we observe lie in
underlying structures and processes that cannot be
observed
 From a Realist standpoint both the natural and social
sciences operate in the same way
 Suicide – An Interpretivist View
 From an interpretivist perspective people act in
terms of meanings and it’s the job of sociologists
to interpret the meanings which direct human
action
 In The Social Meanings of Suicide Jack Douglas
argues that the first step in studying suicide is to
interpret how individuals who commit suicide
define and give meaning to their action
 Douglas admits this is easier said than done,
however he provided 3 Steps in discovering the
meanings
 Douglas’ Steps 1 to 3
 Step 1 is:
 An analysis of suicide notes (if available)
 An examination of personal diaries
 Interviews with people who knew the victim
 Analyse the events preceeding the suicide
 Interview those who’ve survived suicide attempts
 Douglas rejects Durkheim’s classification method
saying it’s too deterministic – it failings to
recognise the meaning of the suicide for the victim
 Douglas’ Steps 1 to 3
 Step 2
 The next step is to look for patterns of meaning which
interviews have shown to be common with suicides, as
opposed to attaching meaning to the act as with Durkheim
( a telelogical position)
 Revenge Suicide – example make a formere lover feel
guilty
 A Search for Help Suicide – a ‘cry for help’ when all else
has failed
 Escape Suicide – an escape from life when it becomes
unberable
 Reptance Suicide – an means of expressing sorrow for
some wrong doing
 Self-Punishment Suicide – a way of punishing oneself for a
misdeed
 Douglas’ Steps 1 to 3
 Step 3
 For this Douglas argues you need to link the
patterns of meaning with the wider beliefs of
the culture
 For example in Western culture suicide is
seen as an act of deperation
 Whereas in other cultures it’s expected, for
example the suicide of the elderly in
nomadic cultures
 Suicide and Statistics
 Douglas is critical of Durkheim’s acceptance of the
reliability and validity of official statistics on suicide
 Douglas argues suicide statistics are the result of
negotiated meanings, by this he means family and
friends might try and conceal the death of a loved
one because of the stigma attached
 And this might influence the coroners verdict
 How might you argue that crime statistics are a
result of negotiated meanings?
 Application of Suicide to Crime
 In the same way Durkheim assumes there’s a consensus
on what is a suicide, there’s the assumption that there’s an
agreed definition on what a crime is
 And so in adopting Durkheim’s scientific approach in
researching crime via qualitative methodologies your
findings could be invalid as the questionnaire is
constructed on an assumed consensus on what is a crime
making you findings invalid, plus not all deviant acts are
defined as a crime
 You could find patterns of correlation between suicide and
certain countries, but this doesn’t mean there’s causation.
Similarly this occurs with crime figures, you might find a
correlation between crime and poverty, but it doesn’t follow
you found a casual connection
 Also you might find a correlation but never find out why
people do things, unlike interpretivist methodologies
 Application of Suicide to Crime
 Douglas’ research tried to uncover the meaning as
to why people committed suicide
 Douglas argues that the label suicide is a result of
negotiated meanings – in other words they’re
socially constructed – and this process needs to
be understood; the same occurs with crime, it’s a
socially constructed definition
 The negotiated meanings in crime statistics
occurs, this starts with the police in deciding
whether an act is criminal or not. Also in the social
world not all acts are ‘negotiated’ between the
members of society as being criminal – just think
of tax evasion being different to tax avoidance
 Evaluation of Douglas
 Suicide statistics are socially constructed
from the definitions and meanings
 These meanings are derived from family,
friends and officials
 Extreme Interpretivism
 Atkinson takes the interpretivist position to its
extreme, to what is known as a phenomenological
approach
 This position sees suicide as simply a meaning
and there’s no reality beyond that meaning,
therefore suicide statistics are not right or wrong
they simply are
 The job of the sociologist is to discover the
meanings and find out how they’re constructed
 Phenomenologists see the process of
categorisation as being key. Statistics are
simply the products of opinions of those
who produce them
 They believe it’s impossible to produce
factual data and so impossible to have
causal explanations
 Phenomenologists do not try to don’t look at
what causes crime but how certain events
become defined as crimes
 From this suicides are not objective ‘social
facts’ with causes that can be explained,
they are meanings. To try and discover the
‘causes’ of suicide will simply result in
uncovering the meanings used to classify a
death as suicide.
 Therefore there are no objective facts with
causes which can be explained there are
only meanings to be uncovered and
understood
 Extreme Interpretivism
 Atkinson conducted observations of
inquests, interviewed coroners and an
examination of coroner’s records
 Atkinson claimed coroners have a
‘common-sense theory’ of suicide. If the
facts fit the theory, then a verdict of suicide
is likely
 Atkinson says coroners start by looking for
‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ cues to indicate
suicide
 Extreme Interpretivism
 Primary cues
 Suicide notes
 Type of death – gassing, drowning, drug overdose
 Place and Circumstance of death
Secondary Cues
 Life histories or biography – mental illness, few
friends, financial problems, disturbed childhood
 Categorising Suicide – if the circumstances of a
death meet all the relevant criteria of a ‘typical
suicide’ then a verdict of suicide is more likely
 By C Thompson christhomp@aol.com